Purity Of Essence
by Wrin Chikaya
Summary: Sequel to The Uprising - May not be suitable for the squeamish
1. Inception

Purity of Essence  
By [Wrin Chikaya][1]

Chapter 1 - Inception

**_"Your cup runneth over again..."_**

Matrix gripped the shaft of AndrAIa's trident hard. The viral energy leaked out between his fingers, coating them with a sticky green substance.

For Matrix, however, Megabyte's lifeblood covered him from head to toe. His insult was markedly intimidated by his hate for the virus. But now the dirt had escaped from the broom, and was about cajoling somewhere.

He didn't know where. 

The insult he felt covered him like a syrup, moving was like slogging through Jell-O. He bunched his eyes shut in an attempt to force the hot tears back inside his skull. He felt the scratch across his eye begin to hurt with the pressure of the muscles in his face tensing. He reached back and...

"AUGH!" >SLAM!<

With an animal-like roar, he ran his fist squarely through the wall of the Diner. The slick substance had smeared on the wall as fingerpaints smear on paper, the puddle on the floor making Matrix leave footprints. 

He had to get out of there. 

The sweat poured itself down his brow and his back as he floated back towards his humble abode on his zipboard. He felt his muscles heating up. They had been tense for awhile now, and they would likely hurt in the morning. 

He didn't care. 

His hands clutched AndrAIa's collapsed trident, feeling the smooth scales stick to his gloves and pull briefly away from the weapon, only to collapse back again. The sensations boiled about in his head, the intensity of it all nearly making him reel with dizziness. There was a slurry of angry, aggressive thoughts swirling about in his head, and the only thing he could think about was how in hell's name he was going to get them out. 

The only way he knew how wasn't going to work, he sensed, taking out physical aggression wasn't going to keep this humiliation, this self-conscious note that he had fucked up while trying to rid the system of a virus, from consuming him eventually.

"How.." he whispered softly, to himself, hoping nobody noticed his hunched shoulders, the way his body language suggested he was trying to hide himself. 

The gloves creaked as he turned the knob into his apartment, and he made a beeline for the shower. The energy slicked across his back, taking away the stickiness, taking away the green, but the insult and hatred remained. The hotness of the shower almost felt as if it was making his pain bubble and boil over, and for a brief moment, Matrix believed he felt pure insanity. 

_No_, he chided himself. He wouldn't lose it, he promised himself. Breathing deeply, trying to scrub away the humiliation. He had felt this way only once before, and surprisingly enough, it was almost the same situation that made him feel so strongly.

He was a _Guardian_, for User's sakes! He reprimanded himself internally. "You tried to delete Megabyte," he said in a tone as to make sure AndrAIa would not hear him, "and you managed to screw it up not once, but twice."

He shook his head, and stepped out of the shower. Unfortunately, the only things that disappeared down that drain were a few layers of skin cells and sweat. He felt the insult coat his skin, feeling almost suffocating, trying to burrow within. He shuddered. 

"Hi, darling," AndrAIa grinned as Matrix toweled off his hair. 

_Must not let her see why I'm worried_, he thought, _I can take care of this myself_.

He wrapped his arms around her gently. "Hi, Andi," he whispered.

She felt something off in the way he sounded, the way he touched her, the way he felt. She couldn't chalk it up to anything, and therefore decided to wait until more definitive details had been carved out. 

-

Matrix tossed in bed. It was the third time he had woken up that night. He was tempted to swear, if it wasn't for the fact that he would likely wake AndrAIa up if he spoke. She always was a light sleeper if it was noisy. The bed, however, he could bounce around as much as he wanted on, and she wouldn't wake up. He would have chuckled, but the silence beckoned his sleep again... 

-

Matrix sat in Floating Point, the topmost level, by the water. There was a yo-yo in his hand, and he twirled it joyfully in his palm. Suddenly, Frisket appeared and appreciated the round shape of the yo-yo in an effort to pull it from Matrix's grasp. 

"No, Frisket, not ball, not now.." Matrix laughed. The dot just kept growling and pulling. 

"No, Frisket!" Matrix stated, firmer this time. To his surprise, Frisket's pupils turned a bright blood red. 

"Frisket?!" He gulped, more defensive now than anything. Frisket's eyes slowly turned green, his fur slowly melting purple.. 

"Ah, the boy," Megabyte's voice hissed from Frisket's jaws. Matrix pulled Gun from its holster, aiming it squarely at Frisket's neck. He fitted his finger into the trigger too slowly to react to the dog as it jumped on him, suffocating him.. 

- 

Waking up panting, sweaty, red-faced and screaming was not exactly the best way to start his morning. He glanced at his alarm clock. Early morning, that is.

Matrix flopped down on the bed again. "What am I going to do..." he whispered to himself, instinctively groping over to the other side of the bed for AndrAIa's form. He was responded by a warm dip in the mattress. AndrAIa must have gotten up to make food. 

Even that made him feel sick, now. 

He flopped over again and pressed his face into the pillow. _I need Bob's help_, he thought to himself, closing his eyes again for another chunk of fitful sleep. 

[Read Chapter 2][2]

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	2. Good Morning, Mainframe

Purity Of Essence   
By [Wrin Chikaya][1]

Chapter 2 - Good Morning, Mainframe

**_"Do you always hit the brakes?" _**

Matrix dodged his way around a pillar as he traveled towards another corner of Kit's sector. He groped his hand quietly down one pant leg to make sure Gun was still safe, in its holster, on his hip. 

He hated leaving AndrAIa in the dark about the situation, but truth be told, he didn't know how to handle the situation. Megabyte was a formidable opponent. Dot had no idea what he was up to. Matrix had heard a considerable amount on the topic of Megabyte from Dot, especially in recent occurrences.

He shook his head. 

Matrix waited idly outside Bob and Dot's apartment, floating on his zipboard. The door opened shortly, and Bob stepped out, a zipboard folded under one arm. 

"What was it you needed me to see?" Bob grinned. 

Matrix almost cringed. Bob seemed to figure that this was going to be something fun, or a pleasant surprise. "Bob, I can't even tell you. Just .. follow me." 

Bob just shrugged and jumped on the zipboard, following the hulking Matrix.

-

To the ordinary observer, Dot's diner was a simple restaurant, designed bar-and-booth style, simplistic in its decor and exceptional in its service. The extraordinary observer, however, would note the cracked and chipped countertop, the tables coated with a fine layer of dust, the vinyl on the seats cracked and peeling and the posters falling off the wall. 

By far its hardest feature to miss was a green smear on the wall, slowly fading to a brownish color, and a puddle of similar hue on the floor cracking away and becoming dust. There were three puncture holes in the wall, all in a row. Holes big enough for Matrix to stick his finger through. Directly to the right of the smear, there was a gaping hole in the wall where Matrix had run his fist through. The imprints of his boots followed a small path in and out of the diner, the drying viral lifeblood cracking away and flaking off slightly faster than the puddle closer to the wall. 

The two men burst in, Bob first, then Enzo following. Bob's surprise was apparent, his jaw dropping, his blue skin turning a slightly more ashen color. 

"Is this.. " Bob hiccuped. 

"Where Megabyte was deleted? Well, I thought he had been deleted." 

"You mean you didn't.. " 

"You're really helping me by being clear here, Bob. Didn't _what_?" The renegade leaned in closer, the sound of creaking leather evident.

Bob kneeled down on the floor and rubbed a bit of the blood off of the floor with a finger. The linoleum underneath was stained a sickly yellow. "When viruses ... are injured," Bob began, "they will, for the most part, only appear deleted for a short time. Many viruses run subroutines that bounce them around the ... energies of the system, so that for viral code to be rendered incapable of regeneration, the virus must be completely decompiled."

"What does this mean, Bob?"

"This means that I assumed that you had already ran Megabyte through a decomposition chamber. If anybody else would have known to do it, it would have been Ph--..." Bob stopped himself short. 

"Phong," Matrix said, hanging his head, again sure of the fact that this had, in fact, been his fault. Bob stood up from his kneeling position and looked Matrix in the face. "Dot needs to know." 

"No," Matrix pleaded, gripping Bob's arm. "I can't let Dot know that I screwed this up. I'm .. I'm putting her life in danger again..." 

"Matrix," Bob said, picking Matrix's hand off of his bicep, "the Command.Com _has_ to know. There is no two ways about it. You should tell AndrAIa too. Keep this quiet, we don't need panic.."

Matrix simply nodded, like a child. Bob's words of wisdom and plans for what to do next seemed to float about him, as if a shell had suddenly formed around his entire body. All he understood was that he had messed up, and must now, ultimately, pay the price. 

The humiliation he was feeling now would be high on that price tag. He could just imaigine Dot's horrified face as Bob told her that Megabyte wasn't gone from her life after all. He imagined that the knowledge would launch her on an emotional ride akin to that which he had never exactly found out about, that which had occurred less than a few cycles ago. If only he had thought to dispose of Megabyte. If only he had thought to ask Dot. If only.. 

The words boiled about his head, lurching, crashing, making his entire brain collapse and reform, feeling as if his head were about to explode and yet somehow implode at the same time. He could feel a pain in his head. Like steel band wrapping itself around his head and tightening slowly ... 

"Enzo?" Bob passed his fingers in front of Matrix's eyes. 

He jumped up, shocked out of his shell, hand at the ready to draw Gun. 

"Easy, big fella," Bob said as he patted Matrix's arm. "Gun can stay in her holster for now." 

Matrix's eye glowed red. Humiliation gave way to anger, giving way to hate.

Bob could see the transformations occurring within Matrix's skull, and in an effort to quell them grabbed Matrix's jaw with one hand. "Hey, Enzo, pay attention to me for just a nano, okay?" Bob raised an eyebrow, then lowered his hand. "What is _up_ with you, anyway?" 

Matrix felt words bubble up his throat, and he coughed them out. It was difficult not to cry. "I put Dot in danger again, didn't I? This is my fault, isn't it..." 

Bob looked up at the burly renegade and blinked. He nearly laughed, but quickly decided that such an action would be in bad taste. Instead, he reached up and laid his palm on Matrix's shoulder. The green hulk raised his chin so as to look at Bob, as opposed to the floor.

"This isn't your fault. You didn't know."

Matrix shifted uncomfortably. 

"Enzo, you did what you could. You saved my life, I'm certain of that. Likely that of your sister's as well." 

Matrix just nodded.

Bob sighed. Matrix wasn't going to get the point any time soon.

Matrix sighed. Bob wasn't going to get the point any time soon. 

And thinking so much alike, neither of them had any clue as to why they were the two most important men in Dot's life.

-

The mists swirled around the dark field Matrix was stepping through. They were like a strong, thick curtain, laying about his shoulders like velvet, weighing him down. 

He stepped cautiously through the path. What was this place? The question ran through his head. Everything seemed too real for it to be a dream, and he squinted his eyes at a glint of light that frosted the darkness. As if the mist didn't seem heavy enough to make the whole world seem to be a three-dimensional curtain.

He leaned down to pick the object up. It was curiously shaped, and an odd purplish color. He brushed off the dirt caked on it. 

The moment Matrix's hands touched the curious object, it turned around to face him of its own accord. Then, it began to speak. 

"Ah, the boy." 

Matrix struggled to choke down a yelp. 

"You put your sister in danger again. Ah, dear, dear boy. What kind of a protector _ARE_ you anyway?" Megabyte's lip curled into a sneer. His eyes glowed a more vibrant shade of red. Matrix felt a chill creep its way up his spine, curling its tendrils around it as if the chill itself were made of acid. He swallowed. 

"You betrayed yourself, _and_ your sister," the head spoke again. "You even destroyed me, something against the values, the protocol, which you yourself hold quite dear." It cackled. Matrix felt something on his inside shrink.

The head grew in size until it was four, five times the size of Matrix. The eyes glowed horribly, orange-red, and then red, then almost flaming. Megabyte's mouth opened slowly, and the head chased Matrix through the misty field, the virus screaming all the way. 

-

Matrix awoke from his nightmare sweaty and red-faced. He must have been thrashing about in his sleep, for AndrAIa had left and was sleeping on the couch. He flipped over again and buried his face in his pillow. Dot had to know. AndrAIa had to know. But Matrix, for the life of him, was to humiliated to tell them. 

The danger mounted.

And somewhere, deep in level 31, a creature stirred.

[Read Chapter 3][2]

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	3. Faith

Purity of Essence   
By [Wrin Chikaya][1]

Chapter 3 - Faith 

**_"No, I can't be tied down with a girl who wants to be tied up.." _**

AndrAIa threw the napkin across the table, it landing squarely on Matrix's chest, peeling off, then crumpling on his lap. 

"This is ridiculous," she spat. "This is absolutely ludicrous. You pussyfoot around like a thief for a few seconds and you don't expect me to be angry with you when you won't say what's going on." She snarled inwardly, feeling anger clutch her chest with the force of her words. Matrix stared at her blankly. She twisted inside. 

"Well, do you have anything at all to say? Say for yourself, say for anybody else, what? What's been going on?" Silence. AndrAIa bellowed at him, more forcefully this time. "What are you _hiding_ from me, Matrix?" 

Matrix shifted in his seat, looking as if he was trying to find a spot on the floor suitable for staring at. AndrAIa fumed quietly. _Obstinate sprite,_ she thought to herself. _Ridiculous. _

"Fine, I'm going home." 

Matrix finally spoke. "Isn't _this_ your home?" 

"Not like this, Enzo, not when you won't speak to me, not when you thrash around in your sleep in a fashion I've only seen you do in the games when we were on the verge of losing. Not like this." She rambled slightly, her anger carrying her away on an intense wave of gripping frustration. 

Matrix's mouth dropped open. 

"What, you don't think I've been able to figure out something was wrong? What in hell's name has had you so worked up? I can't, for the life of me, understand what would rile you up this badly and you wouldn't bother to--" 

Matrix met her steel gaze. He blinked at her, sighing in a shuddering way. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, or someone who was almost afraid to speak. He closed his eyes, almost in a childish manner of protecting himself. 

AndrAIa sensed this was the moment to stop ranting at him. The shell would peel away now, her cracking words would have taken their toll. 

Matrix inhaled, and breathed only one word. "Megabyte." 

"What about Megabyte? You mean, you've had nightmares about Megabyte? ... You destroyed him though, didn't you?" AndrAIa raised an eyebrow. 

"No, ... no, apparently not." 

AndrAIa chewed on this thought for a moment, then looked him squarely in the face. As stubborn and obstinate as he was, this was not the time to leave him on his own. She sighed. "Okay, lover, what do you need from me?" 

He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. He didn't speak for a long time, dragging his right hand through his hair in what had become a nervous habit. "We'll take care of him," he breathed, then corrected himself. "No, _I'll_ take care of him." 

AndrAIa eyed him with a curious gaze, somehow sensing this was all the informatino she really required for now. "You'll need help, Enzo." 

He sighed. "I know..." 

"You've got Bob, right? Bob knows, right?" 

"Yeah, he knows." 

"Does Dot?" 

Here, Matrix sighed again. In truth, Dot didn't know. And how to tell her was, well, a mystery to him. "AndrAIa, could you do me a favor?" 

"Of course," AndrAIa breathed, pausing only for a moment to think. 

"Could you tell Dot? I'll.. I couldn't do it." 

AndrAIa nodded slowly, stalking over to the other end of the apartment for her zipboard. He didn't move a muscle as she made preparations to leave for Dot's. She pressed a button at the door, feeling a rush of air as it slid open. 

"Andi?" Matrix mumbled, head still bowed. 

"Yes, Enzo?" 

"I love you." 

AndrAIa closed her eyes. "I love you too, Enzo." 

The apartment door slid shut with a finality that made AndrAIa uneasy. 

- 

The buzzer at Dot's rang loudly, Bob snoring on the couch. Dot cringed, hoping it wouldn't wake him up. She opened the door to AndrAIa, surprised. 

"AndrAIa, wh.. what brings you here?" Dot's slight surprise at seeing AndrAIa on her doorstep, alone, was difficult to hide. 

"I need to talk to you, has anything seemed amiss?" AndrAIa brushed past Dot into her living quarters, spying Bob asleep on the couch. She restrained a chuckle. _Men,_ she thought. 

"Uh, nothing, really." Dot's eyebrow remained raised. "Why?" 

"Matrix's seemed very .. off lately. He's been very quiet. He's spent some time with Bob, I was curious if you knew what was going on," AndrAIa was having difficulty organizing her words. How does one inform somebody that the one who nearly succeeded at killing them isn't dead after all? 

Dot raised the other eyebrow. "He's been very quiet lately." 

"Matrix just asked me to tell you this, as a favor today.." AndrAIa wrung her hands. 

Dot leaned forward, slowly, narrowing her eyes. "AndrAIa, there's something you're not telling me." 

"Megabyte's alive." 

Dot's eyes widened and her eyebrows went up. "Well, that certainly _is_ news," she said, then added as an afterthought: "I can understand why Matrix was so reluctant to tell me himself..." 

AndrAIa nodded. What to do from here on in had yet to be decided, but ultimately, Megabyte would pay. She was confident of that. 

Dot receeded into herself, arms crossed, leaned back on her chair. AndrAIa stood up slowly, leaving the apartment as the system crossed into night. She sighed slowly. This was bound to be a ride. 

---   
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	4. Fingernails

Purity of Essence   
By [Wrin Chikaya][1]

Chapter 4- Fingernails

**_"You can keep my things, they've come to take me home." _**

Matrix picked leaves out of the treads of his boots; it had been AndrAIa's idea to come to Floating Point anyway. He rolled a leaf up between his fingers and stared at it. What was the point of it, anyway? Weren't they just wasting time? He ground his teeth, determined to stick it out for her.

AndrAIa stood a few metres away from where Matrix was sitting, looking desolate, running his hand along the grass. Even Frisket seemed confused as to his reaction; he didn't usually pull into himself like that. He was, so AndrAIa thought, always a rather ... _outspoken_ kind of guy. 

He glanced around quietly. Somehow word must have gotten out about Megabyte. People hadn't panicked openly, but Matrix could sense that the truth had been twisted enough for people to think that he either left Megabyte alive on purpose, or that they had been right about how pitiful his Guardian skills were. Binomes walked by, staring. Occasionally they would try to shuffle a few paces away from him, trying to stay unnoticed. Matrix shook his head. 

AndrAIa remained quiet on these matters. She couldn't much do to help him, and had always made it a point to not try to change things that would change of their own accord; though this bothered her. It bothered her to see Matrix back at where he started, back to ridicule and back to hatred. She thought he had mellowed out a bit since the Games; it seemed now to her more like he'd just been hiding his personality better. 

Matrix's mind was boiling fairly rapidly by now. He was questioning his own Guardian abilities much like the citizens of Mainframe began to question the validity of Dot's position as Command.Com after Phong's death. They had begun to revolt quietly, slowly, but surely. It made Matrix sick to think how fickle their society was, especially after spending so much of his life thinking about it as a veritable Utopia.

AndrAIa hadn't known much about what had happened to Dot earlier. All she had known was that Dot had had a series of crimes and crimes of circumstance pinned on her head by the naysayers and fear-mongerers of the city. She paused, considering whether or not this Megabyte situation Matrix had been speaking about would have had anything to do with it. If so, Matrix must not have known about it for a very long time. 

Matrix pulled Gun from its holster and fiddled with it for a little while. He shifted his weight to the other side in order to hold it with both hands. Why hadn't Dot summoned him until the last minute? He clenched his jaw. For somebody who planned a whole lot, his sister sure wasn't the greatest person at planning ambushes in advance. He scratched his head. She hadn't told anybody, likely. And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him like she _had_ planned it well after all. 

"AndrAIa?" Matrix mumbled from where he was sitting. 

AndrAIa padded over to the tree he was shading himself under and knelt next to him. "Yeah?"

"What's wrong with me?" 

She frowned slowly. He'd always been one to blame things on himself -- surprisingly like his sister in that sense. "There's nothing wrong with you, lover... you did what you could." 

"Sometimes I wonder." She snorted some air out her nose, a habit of thought, trying to figure out where Matrix's emotional pendulum was swinging this time. He was a difficult person to be there for, easy to nestle next to, and to love, and to talk to, but his mannerisms were sometimes everything short of secretive. Getting him to speak was often an ordeal. But she was patient; and this often proved to be her biggest asset. "What do you think is wrong with you that you're asking me? It sounds like you're just trying to get me to tell you something you think you already know."

"I should have thought to ask Dot about what to do with Megabyte. I was selfishly quiet. I was--" 

"Uninformed," AndrAIa cut in, though the amount of information she had on the situation was negligible. 

"You know little less than I do about what actually happened. I'm not entirely certain she really wants us to know." 

AndrAIa wondered silently why this particular detail would matter, but said anyway; "Dot is a rather private lady sometimes. A lot like her brother, in that sense." AndrAIa frowned. "She has a right to her own privacy; just as some of the things that happened in the Web you choose to keep private."

"It's exactly that, though. She won't tell me anything. Maybe I would have known better how to deal with Megabyte --"

"Do you think that unreasonable?" she interjected, thoughts barreling their way through her mind about him not blaming himself anymore, at least.

"Considering the situation, well..." Matrix ran a hand through his hair, another habit of thought. AndrAIa took this to mean that he didn't really know if he felt it unreasonable or not. Half the time, she mused, his body language spoke louder and more often than any of his words did. 

"I don't think she's being unreasonable," she stated. This was another card to play, placing a solid opinion. Sometimes knowing her opinion ahead of time made it easier for him to spit his out. She hoped, at least. "Dot wasn't mad at you, you know." 

Matrix's ears seemed to perk up. "She wasn't?" 

"Nope."

He folded his self-destructive attitude. AndrAIa raised an eyebrow inwardly. He respected his sister a lot, she could see this. And even after the countless time she had spent with him in the Games, she still found it odd that he continued to keep so much to himself that she found it difficult to understand what it was that he was thinking. Fortunately, the time that she had spent with him had made her understand his mannerisms better, and be more understanding of such quirks. 

He wrung his hands, his mind reeling. People didn't treat him the same anymore. They were an impressionable lot, the citizens of Mainframe. It nearly made him sick to know that all he had to do was breathe in a way that displeased them and his name would be smeared.

AndrAIa stared off into space. She felt quite shut out, but by far was used to it. The entire atmosphere of Mainframe sometimes made her feel shut out, the small-town way of things making her feel like a stranger. In the Games, she felt more comfortable; constantly being on the move made her feel slightly more at ease; though wherever Matrix was it seemed she didn't need the sensation of 'ease'. She felt as if she belonged, even if the thought of everybody knowing who she was grated on her at times.

Matrix ran his eyes across the horizon. He blinked at a glint in the distance, then squinted to get a better look at it. His cybernetic eye twirled and zoomed in, but by the time it recalibrated itself, whatever had caused the glint was gone. 

Matrix felt a chill run up his back, and his game-born instincts crawled their way to his consciousness. It seemed the filth had found a better place to hide. 

---  
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	5. The Broiler

Purity of Essence  
By [Wrin Chikaya ][1]

Chapter 5 - The Broiler

**_"I would rather rescue at the gates of Hell than to live beside those chapel bells."_**

AndrAIa eyed Matrix quietly. His eyes were centered on one point. He was cleaning Gun in his lap, and its muzzle was what captivated his attention so thoroughly. She tapped her fingers on her arm. He'd changed.

Not really in large ways; she still loved him with every fibre in her body, though it seemed she never saw him anymore. It scared her, marginally; his rage seemed muted, cut with a substance that kept it from exploding. AndrAIa had any guess as to what substance this was, though she wasn't vain enough to believe her company had much effect to this end. It seemed often as if she was holding him back, had him tied, even. She breathed deeply a few times, trying to calm the rising swell of frustration in her chest; she found herself doing that a lot lately.

He shifted in his chair.

He'd become more violent; more like he was in the Games when he'd nearly lost hope of ever coming home. Sometimes, though not often, this violence was seen by AndrAIa. At first, when they were younger, she used to wonder why he'd sneak off and come back with his fists scuffed, until she figured out that he took his frustration out physically.

He wasn't like Dot in this sense, he couldn't take his frustration out by throwing himself into his work. Even as a Guardian he was second-rate, only a Cadet and never with any formal training. He'd shoved that persona aside completely as of late.

Almost making things worse, though not really purposefully, was little Enzo. The young boy of Enzo's past (sometimes that he'd like to give everything to forget) almost seemed to remind Matrix of the shortcomings he'd experienced. Since the younger Guardian had grown tired of the company of Mouse, he'd decided his best option would be to spend time with his older self, of course, completely oblivious to the things that had been happening.

He was a bright kid, just not too quick.

AndrAIa tried to teach him as best she could; she found it awkward that he had an almost hero-worship complex with her; much as he had had with Bob. She seemed to be Bob's close second in his eyes, and his favorite questions to ask were concerning the Games. Always the Games. AndrAIa remembered them with the same lack of fondness a refugee has for the place he escaped from. She passed this bitterness on to Enzo, inadvertently, and Enzo half-wanted to believe her, and half-disbelieved that the Games could ever have been anything but fun.

Then again, he'd never been in a Game without Bob. AndrAIa often looked at him in dismay when he commented on how much fun Games were with Bob. It was difficult to keep it in his mind that a Game has no way of escape, and is a constant battle for life and death. 

Matrix had had very little influence on Enzo. Very few people had any influence on Enzo. Matrix, on the other hand, had wanted to have nothing to do with the small sprite. AndrAIa sometimes speculated to herself whether this had anything to do with the fact that Matrix despised what he used to be, and being faced with such a thing made him uneasy.

Truly, and indeed, such situations should not have been possible.

But it had come to appear.

AndrAIa tapped Matrix gently on the shoulder. "Love?"

Matrix grunted in reply.

"Matrix, I'm going to the Data Slides with Enzo. Do you want to come?"

No reply.

"Matrix, I don't want to fight with you; you need to get out of the house."

No reply.

"Enzo."

"Call me Matrix," he grunted.

"No, you're being childish."

Matrix spun in the chair and glared at AndrAIa with a fury she'd never seen directed at her before. Fear tightened in her chest for a moment-- but only a moment.

"Childish?! I'm being CHILDISH?!" he screamed. AndrAIa's eyes widened and a knot rose in her chest. Staring him in the face, she became less aware of whether it would be more appropriate to snarl at him and finish the fight she had started or just leave.

It was when he lunged at her, his eye clouded, and shoved her aside to storm into the bedroom and slam the door that her options became clearer. She picked up her coat, grabbed Enzo's hat and left the apartment.

The smaller Enzo stared at AndrAIa quizzically; Frisket was prancing around in circles, eager to embark on an upcoming walk. Enzo spoke: "Aunty Andi? What's going on?"

AndrAIa shivered slightly, the force of what had just happened rocking her psyche briefly. She pondered faking a happy face and leaving the younger Enzo guessing, but threw this idea down almost instantly.

"Matrix is angry."

"Aunty, I've never seen him so angry. He's usually so quiet. What happened? What did you say? What's happening?" Enzo seemed to grow more and more shaken as he saw AndrAIa's eyes cloud with a fear mixed with sadness. He wasn't quite perceptive enough to notice exactly how violently her fists were clenched together, but he saw the hard look of disorientation and desperation written on AndrAIa's face. She reached out with one hand and guided Enzo by the shoulder to her waiting motorbike. Frisket folded his ears back, and eyed the door to the apartment, as if afraid to re-enter, despite his not being allowed on the bike.

AndrAIa loved that bike. Usually they took zipboards wherever they went in Mainframe, but this appeared (to Enzo at least) to be an occasion to remember, considering AndrAIa whistled to tell Frisket he was allowed to ride with them.

The motor bubbled and roared, and she sped away as fast as she could, Enzo half-distracted by the exhilarating ride her bike provided, but a piece of his heart still focused on Matrix and his strange actions. He shivered, noting the system was about to cross into night cycle and wondering why AndrAIa hadn't brought coats for the two of them if they were going to the Data Slides.

His questions were answered when he saw them approach Bob's 8-ball apartment building and AndrAIa ring the bell to summon the occupants. She was visibly shaken, frightened, but more determined than anything else; the fear had somehow melted away, or perhaps she had folded and hidden it; either way, Enzo saw that she was going to make sure everything was okay. But why Dot's?

It was Bob who answered the door. This obviously caught AndrAIa by surprise; she jumped a little, having hoped to see Dot at the door. She recovered quickly, however, and greeted Bob politely, despite looking disheveled.

"Hi, Bob, is Dot home?"

"She's at the Principal Office.. she'll be home within a few micros. Was there anything you needed?" Bob tilted his head to one side, studying her.

AndrAIa hiccupped, and breathed deeply a few times. She must not break down in front of anybody. This was not the time. "Could we, uh... could we come in?" She hugged herself, shivering, and Enzo stared at her with a fleeting sense of insecurity.

Bob didn't hesitate a nano; though Frisket growled at him under his breath on the way in. AndrAIa pulled a blanket off of the back of the couch and wrapped herself in it. Enzo was terminally confused. 

Bob looked at AndrAIa with muted concern and she made a motion with her head to get Enzo out of the room; she had no desire to frighten him. "Enzo, I doubt you want to sit around here and listen to us talk; why don't you and Frisket go into the other room and watch some .movs." Enzo eyed Bob skeptically, knowing potential boredom wasn't the only reason for Bob wanting him out of the room. Bob noted Enzo's hesitation. "I'll make you cocoa," he offered. Enzo's ears perked up. There wasn't really anything Enzo wouldn't do for chocolate.

"Alphanumeric!" he heard himself exclaim, and Frisket followed him into the den. Bob rattled around in the kitchen for a bit, then returned to AndrAIa, the sounds of _The Princess Sprite_ playing softly in the background.

Bob sat down on the couch, across from AndrAIa. Truth be told, this was an awkward situation; Bob had found it difficult to get used to the thought of Enzo as an adult, let alone AndrAIa. She shivered in the blanket. Bob leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. His mind raced. "AndrAIa?" he finally managed.

"Bob.." she breathed, shaken. Her whole world was crumbling.

Bob rumpled his eyebrows. "AndrAIa, what happened?" he ventured.

"Matrix is completely random," she stated, with finality and ironic confidence.

Bob raised an eyebrow, and waited for AndrAIa to explain. 

"Ever since Megabyte ... he's been .. so hard on himself.. I don't really know what.. what's going on in his head..." she gulpled several breaths of air, and Bob could see she was trying to prevent herself from crying. He yearned to hug her and comfort her, but decided due to the abnormal dynamic to the situation, he would leave this to Dot. "He ... he's so mad all the time.. at everything .. and so depressed.." she hiccupped. A tear trickled down her face, and Bob had an urge to brush it away, but she ignored it, and so did he. "I told him he was being childish. And he shoved me across the living room.. and so I came to bring Enzo here and drop him off. I'm afraid."

Bob opened his mouth to reply when he heard the crack of the door as it opened and Dot stepped in. "AndrAIa!" she exclaimed, before she'd even taken off her shoes. AndrAIa fought an urge to hide her face. Bob glanced at Bob, and then Dot. He stood up, hugged Dot, whispered something in her ear and then went off to the den to join Enzo.

Dot sat down next to AndrAIa. "It's Matrix," she stated.

AndrAIa nodded, the tears difficult to hold back. "I don't need such a fuss to be made over me, really, I didn't want to be fussed over like this, I don't want to be fussed over, I just wanted Enzo over here and I sort of lost my cool, I'm sorry, I can't.." AndrAIa rambled. Dot just put a hand on her shoulder to silence her. 

"You're always welcome here, AndrAIa, now let's start from the beginning. What happened?"

-

Matrix stared at a point in the wall. A little black dot. It appeared to move, but didn't really move. Maybe it was the wall that was moving. Probably. Who knew. He just knew his rage was impossible to quell; or so it seemed.

He hadn't _meant_ to hurt AndrAIa, really. He hadn't. Or he told himself that. It's just for a second, when she called him a child, he saw Megabyte. He saw red, was what he saw. His rage blinded him, and he ended up hurting the one he loved. He hung his head.

See, this seperated another partition of rage within his core. There was the dirty, aching one, the one for Megabyte. The one that was repeatedly kicking him for not deleting Megabyte in the first place, and the one that was infuriating him by reminding him he had messed up the job of deleting him the second time. He cursed inwardly; this other partition ate at him for alienating AndrAIa. But she loved him? Didn't she...?

He sighed. Did she still? After that outburst? Hadn't they been through worse? He did a quick mental calculation, and then remembered he had never raised a hand to her before. It was enough to make a sprite scream, he thought. But she had just left. And Enzo? Gah, he thought to himself. That little rodent of a sprite. He felt a pang inside; that sprite was _him_. Did he really have such a low opinion of himself that he had begun to hate those like him?

But he loved AndrAIa! Didn't he?

He slept on the chair that night; Gun clattered to the floor, his breaths coming heaving and heavily. He hoped, no, prayed, that she would come back... so at least he could apologize...

-

AndrAIa had cried for an indescribable amount of time. It was only when she had stopped clawing at the pillow, and her breaths stopped coming in rasps, and the tears had dried and flaked on her cheeks that Dot and Bob had stopped checking on her. Frisket had nosed his way under the covers to stay in her arms, trying to somehow (in his own doglike way) comfort her by giving her something to occupy that space. Enzo was just frightened that this rugged, self-sufficient, independent woman had broken down and cried. He had padded out of bed, mindful of the absence of Frisket (this he was not used to,) and hunted down AndrAIa.

There she was, covered by thick blankets, curled around his own red-and-gold doberman. It made him miss Frisket less, if anything. She had one arm outstretched over Frisket, appearing as if in mid-grasp. Nobody needed to guess at what she was reaching for.

And somehow, Enzo knew how she felt; it caused a cold, tensing stirring inside him to know that this person was merely a mirror image of himself.

---  
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	6. Sleep

Purity of Essence - Chapter 6 - Sleep

Purity of Essence  
By [Wrin Chikaya ][1]

Chapter 6 - Sleep

**_"Baby, if I could keep it together, don't you think I'd try?"_**

AndrAIa looked about her blearily. The cold realization smacked her; she was at Bob and Dot's. Oh, how she had hoped it was all just a bad dream. She squeezed her eyes shut and steeled her nerves. It wasn't a dream. It wouldn't be a dream. It was staying a reality. This was her life. She must live it.

She pawed the warm dip in the mattress where Frisket had been sleeping. It must have been early. Very early. The light coming in from her window wasn't the yellow of day; rather the whitish-gray of a miserable morning. Too early. She sat up, the frigidity of the air clasping at her shoulders; she fought an urge to sink back under the covers. Frisket. Where _was_ Frisket, anyway?  


Swinging her feet over the edge of the bed, she attempted to wipe some of the bleariness from her eyes. She grabbed the end table for support, but her attempt at standing was halted briefly when she felt the scrap of paper laying there. She rumpled her eyebrows, and picked it up.

AndrAIa:  
Enzo and I are at the go-kart track. Should be back within the micro. Dot wants to speak to you.  
-Bob

Humiliation swelled inside her. She shoved it down. Opening the door, she caught a whiff of java. She may as well speak with Dot. _Spammit_, she thought to herself. _And I had been hoping to leave quietly._  


Dot raised her head when AndrAIa walked into the room. Setting down the mugs of java on the table, she pulled out a chair and motioned for AndrAIa to sit. AndrAIa obeyed, strangely zombie-like, feeling curiously empty and drained. Fitful sleep.

"Glad to see you're awake. I got Bob to take Enzo out somewhere so we could talk." She pursed her lips in thought. AndrAIa kept her hands on her lap. She felt strangely cornered; even though Dot hadn't really meant for that.

"I'm going home, you know."

"I had assumed that," Dot nodded. "I think it may be for the best."

AndrAIa squinted at Dot. "I had thought you would oppose an idea like that."

"No," Dot said, then sighed, as if in contemplation. AndrAIa shifted, slightly more relaxed, still skeptical. Then, Dot spoke. "Honestly, if I were you, I'd likely do the same."

"For your brother?"

"For Bob."

"Oh." AndrAIa lowered her eyes, suddenly self-conscious. "I don't want Enzo to see. I think Matrix is frightening him enough as it is. It makes me uneasy. I'm scared that... that.."

"That Matrix would do something to Enzo?"

AndrAIa nodded. She felt that lump in her throat again, and swallowed. Maybe the java would help.

There was an awkward silence as AndrAIa drank her java, then Dot spoke. "I know you don't know me. I know this is weird. I know you spent a long time with me as the mother-figure in this system; I know I still am. I know this is weird." She licked her lips.

AndrAIa leaned forward, elbows on the table. She couldn't sense what was coming. She hated it when she couldn't sense what was coming. Dot sat at the table and steadied her gaze at AndrAIa. AndrAIa raised her eyes to look at Dot, and blinked. There was more of Dot in those eyes than AndrAIa had ever seen. She listened.

"I do want to get to know you. I do think you and Matrix are good together. I do think he has some unfinished business to get to. I do think he's a good person. I don't think he meant what he did."

AndrAIa blinked slowly, then rubbed her temples. "I think Matrix and I need to sort this out. Would you mind keeping Enzo for a little while, say, maybe a cycle?"

Dot bit her lip. "I'll take Enzo. It won't be forever. But for now."

AndrAIa nodded and pushed her way away from the table. "Where's Frisket?"

"Out with Bob and Enzo."

"Enzo loves Frisket."

"I know," said Dot, looking at AndrAIa with a half-smile. AndrAIa realized shortly how much she liked Dot. It had nothing to do with trustworthiness really; Dot's personality demanded trust. Dot's aura demanded other things; demanded that AndrAIa like her despite her instincts. Despite the fact that she had found it difficult to trust people after a time in the Games. Dot smacked of friendliness. More importantly, she seemed a friend.

AndrAIa's thoughts scattered when she noticed Dot's hand on her forearm. She was shaking. This wasn't like her. This wasn't proper. This shouldn't have been real.

AndrAIa self-consciously snaked her arm underneath the table, hiding it from Dot. Dot frowned slightly, fractionally. The Game sprite stood anyway, the chair creaking as she slid it back into place under the table. She swallowed. Matrix would be at home, and she would have to face him.

She looked at Dot. The Command.Com looked back at her, facial expression steeled, and nodded slightly. AndrAIa blinked. Whatever could she be nodding about?

"Go home," Dot said gently. AndrAIa understood. 

"Frisket?"

"Leave him with us," Dot said, her eyes playing thoughtfully across the room, coming to rest on the couch, picking their way over the rumpled blankets left by the Game sprite the evening before. AndrAIa nodded. 

"You don't mind keeping Enzo for a little while..?" AndrAIa ventured. The small sprite was so unlike her Matrix. She shifted uncomfortably, mindful of how much he -- how much they had _both_ changed.   


Dot shook her head soundlessly. AndrAIa sighed deeply, and eyed Dot squarely.

"What will you do if he pulls something stupid again?" spoke the older sprite. The thought of it made AndrAIa's hair stand on end.

"Come back, likely."

"And then?"

"I.. I'm not sure."

Dot remained silent, and AndrAIa took this as her cue to leave.

The door slid shut with a finality that made AndrAIa uneasy.

-

Matrix stirred. The blankets smelled of sweat, and booze. The ROM he had drunk the night before had done very little except put him to sleep. A pounding headache assailed his skull. His tongue stuck to the inside of his mouth, dry, dehydrated. The pleasant chime of the doorbell seemed like speaker feedback. He roused himself to answer it anyway. Where _was_ everybody?  


AndrAIa greeted him at the door, and he felt surprise well up in his chest. His vision blurred into several shades of red, and he reeled.

AndrAIa had begun to whisper a muted greeting when she noticed Matrix was on the verge of falling to the floor. She lunged to grab at him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she would never have been able to support his weight. He staggered to the side and crashed to the floor, clocking his head on the wall, falling beyond AndrAIa's reach. She withdrew her hand and stood up warily. 

The red blurred to purples.

He stood, feeling an almost euphoric disorientation, reaching forward. He saw Megabyte! 

AndrAIa's eyes widened sharply and quickly as Matrix's fist swung up into her face. The wet smacking sound it made when it connected with her nose was sickening. She staggered back and curled up on the floor in a fetal position, the blood from her nose staining the carpet. Matrix stood up drunkenly, disoriented, and spying the heaving figure on the floor, pounced on it.

AndrAIa pulled her bloody hands away from her face long enough to thrash about, fighting to get out of the apartment. It was a mistake coming here. It was a mistake. She managed to squirm her way out of his grip and dashed for the other end of the apartment. If she could make it to the window, maybe ...

She felt her course change direction in mid-air as Matrix shoved her aside. She clattered to the floor, feeling her knee twist oddly as she landed. She winced, wanting to scream. 

He was yelling in tongues now, she grateful that Gun wasn't in his grip. A Game sprite and a system sprite, circling each other in their own apartment. AndrAIa extended her claws, ready to strike should Matrix lunge again. She limped around him. "Matrix?! What are you DOING?!" she screamed in disbelief. 

His vision blurred to green. Megabyte! He jumped at her, shoving her aside, feeling a stinging, piercing sensation drumroll itself across his collarbone. Making fists, he beat mercilessly at the face of the virus, until suddenly, he felt himself growing weaker, and his vision cleared.

AndrAIa.

He began breathing heavier, less with the exertion he had been feeling before, but more with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. A knowledge of what he had done. He attempted to justify himself in thought. _My hate .. it consumed me. I didn't mean to! I love her!_  


A gargly moan, and the creature beneath him stirred. His stomach churned, and he felt his elbows buckle. He rolled off of AndrAIa as the paralysis of her nails seeped into his blood, his vision fading.

She moved jerkily. Was he asleep? She prayed so. 

Her bike was idling outside. She could hear it. The pain in her side and in her leg was intense, disabling even, but she threw herself atop her motorbike and made tracks for Dot's.

Bob answered the door, his eyes wide, concern evident as he helped her to the couch. 

"I.. Matrix.."

"Don't talk, AndrAIa.. just don't talk.." Bob stuttered as he struggled to stop AndrAIa's nosebleed. Dot emerged from the den. Her face painted in a grimace of horror, and she withdrew from the room, shutting the door. AndrAIa could hear Enzo's pleas from inside, and she groaned. 

"Enzo..."

"Don't fight with me, Andi," Bob chastised as AndrAIa squirmed on the couch. "I need you to lay still!"

"I'm not .. ever going .. back .." she rasped. 

"Lay still!"

AndrAIa gulped blood and closed her eyes. A burning sensation tore through her body, and all awareness left her.

-

Matrix cried. His chest heaved, great heavy sobs racking his muscular frame. He had hurt AndrAIa. How could he have...

His love!

He chided himself thoroughly and harshly. Without mercy.

He fell asleep a victim to fitful dreams, and watched by a pair of glowing red pupils.

_The time has come_, thought the filth to itself.

---  
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	7. Roller Coaster

Purity of Essence - Chapter 7 - Roller Coaster

Purity of Essence  
by [Wrin Chikaya][1]

Chapter 7 - Roller Coaster

  
_**"The confusion that was hers now belongs to the baby down the hall."**_

Matrix rubbed his hands together, feeling the dirt and grit catch between his fingers. His conscience had ceased to scream at him, finally, and all that its absence left was an emptiness akin to the stillness left after the final echo of a concert has faded.

AndrAIa. He had hurt AndrAIa. Not just hurt, even, really. Attacked. She had been bleeding, moreover. If the guilt brought on by botching Megabyte's defeat was monumental, then the guilt caused by his actions towards AndrAIa in the past few seconds was enough to kill a sprite.

Grit covered him from head to toe. The apartment itself was pristine except for the living room where he had attacked AndrAIa. There, blood spattered the furniture and walls, and stained the carpet. He had been completely afraid to enter the room after he had woken up from AndrAIa's poison and dashed into their-- no, _his_ bedroom in an attempt to shut the whole event out.

However, the problem was that it just never went away.

AndrAIa had undoubtedly fled to his sister's place. How to face his sister _now_ was a question scratching at his mind. It made him hurt straight to the code to think of what Dot likely thought of him.

Preoccupied in a list of thoughts as long as his arm, reeling from start to finish as quickly as time could allow, Matrix failed to notice the stealthy metal steps making their way towards him.

In fact, he didn't even notice anyone else in the apartment when the door to the bedroom was opened. 

He hadn't even noticed it by the time the intruder was standing right behind him.

Megabyte curled his hands around Matrix's skull, immobilizing it, forcing Matrix to stiffen in immediate panic.

But this author is guilty of jumping ahead.

To the beginning.

---

AndrAIa woke up for a second time in Bob and Dot's apartment. Or was it a third? She squeezed her eyes shut at the unwelcome infiltration of light. Her arms, her shoulders, her legs, her face, and oh, User, her back. Everything ached. 

"Enzo?" she managed to croak out. She was wrapped tightly in a spotless green blanket, stretched out on the couch, or as stretched out as she could be under the circumstances. Upon further inspection, she discovered that one of her cheeks was so swollen it was difficult to open that eye, and that her nose had a lump in it, almost as if it had been broken. She groaned inwardly, not out of pain, but out of compounded embarrassment. Her knee was bandaged uncomfortably in some sort of fleece fabric, stretched out straight with a piece of dowel on each side to keep it steady. _Is everything broken?_ she thought inwardly. 

She heard the creaking of leather on leather as Bob tiptoed towards her. "Bob, where's Enzo?"

Bob's eyebrows twitched slightly as he eyed her in puzzlement. "He's out. With Frisket."

"Oh..." she seemed so far away.

He reached his hand out and placed it on her forehead. She was feverish too. "Enzo," she repeated.

"He's gone, I said."

"I know," she snapped. "What does he know?"

"Well," Bob swallowed hard. "He saw you return bleeding. He knew you'd gone to see Matrix."

"What did Dot ... tell ... him?" she panted. She felt her chest go heavy. She dreaded Bob's response.

"Now, that I don't know," Bob conceded.

She pressed her eyes shut tightly. What to think of Matrix? He'd tried to kill her. And the worst part was, she didn't even understand any possible reason why. There was no provocation. Nothing. It was almost as if he hadn't even seen her.

Bob sat cross-legged next to AndrAIa, his hand on her forearm, in silence, until Dot came home. She was flushed, and frantic. It made AndrAIa sink into the couch to guess what could have possibly happened _this_ time.

"Has anyone seen Enzo?" she panted. 

AndrAIa wriggled herself upright. "You mean he wasn't with _you_?"

"Oh, User," Dot faltered. 

"Megabyte?" Bob volunteered.

"You think he was kidnapped?" Dot asked.

AndrAIa struggled to stand. Bob reached over to quiet her. "No, you don't understand!" she snapped as she fought him. "You don't understand!"

Dot grabbed AndrAIa's hand and asked in puzzlement: "What don't we understand?" AndrAIa was feverish, Dot reasoned. 

"You have to get over to the apartment."

Bob rumpled his eyebrows. "I don't understand why." 

"Exactly," AndrAIa stated. "I'm not exactly sure what's going on but I have this sneaking suspicion that it involves Megabyte and Matrix. He's not after _you_, Dot, he never _was!_" 

Dot's eyes widened at the thought. Bob remained clueless. "What are you _saying_?"

"I'm saying that we're bound to find Megabyte wherever Enzo is. And I bet both Matrix and Enzo, are to be found at my -- his -- our apartment, rather."

Bob didn't agree. "I think it's a trap for Dot." 

"Well, Bob, trap or no trap," AndrAIa shifted, "If you want Dot to stay behind, then you're going alone."

Bob mulled this thought over for a moment, then conceded. 

"Alright, then. Let's head out."

And AndrAIa was left in a quiet apartment, feeling useless and antsy. She narrowed her eyes at the set of keys on the table ...

-

Megabyte smiled toothily at Matrix as the man-sprite's eyes widened in fear. Complete powerlessness. Megabyte was so giddy with the thought it was dreadfully detrimental to his effort to appear aloof. Paralyzed with fear. 

"Oh, dearest, dearest boy. How we shall see now, who is predator, and who is prey..."

-

In the quiet of night, a lone motorbike glistened. Idling like a kitten, its rider sat awkwardly on its seat, but rode with a sense of purpose.

The roar of the motor soon faded away into the eerie silence of the night.

-

The door to the apartment was locked shut. It took a few tries for even Bob to get it open; "Spammed high-security locks..." he cursed. 

Dot's stomach did flip-flops when she saw the imprints of carnage on the walls and carpet of the living room, but the both of them could hear the sounds of a struggle inside the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar.

Bob ventured down the hall first.

-

Megabyte stopped short when he felt a pistol pushed against the side of his head. But surely this was impossible? A second? Megabyte narrowed his eyes; he was invincible! This couldn't be true!

Defeated by a--

BLAM!

-

Dot stared in disbelief. The sprite who now held Gun in his hand was almost sickeningly like his elder. She found it difficult to discern between the expressions on the faces of the two sprites, so alike in all the wrong ways. 

AndrAIa limped up behind, and closed her eyes tightly in dismay at the scene which lay before her now. Enzo, holding a weapon which did not belong to him, and yet did, and Matrix, staring at AndrAIa with so much shame in his eyes...

It was enough to make a sprite's blood run cold.

"User save us all," Dot mumbled.

Matrix stood up and tiptoed warily towards AndrAIa. "Are you ... alright?"

AndrAIa turned her head away instinctively, pinchingly self-conscious about her face. She forced herself to look at him. "You ..."

"I'm ... I'm so sorry, Andi."

And every fibre in AndrAIa's body screamed at her to forgive him.

-

The couple sat in a bedroom in Dot and Bob's apartment. The very bedroom AndrAIa had slept in that fateful night, and woken up in that fateful morning. Matrix had spent the entire night cycle explaining, and AndrAIa was silent. At least Matrix recognized what he had done. And what he had caused.

One of her worst fears was beginning to materialize. Enzo had begun to become Matrix in the worst way, and at an earlier age even than Matrix first was when he had become stuck in the Games. It was enough to make a sprite crumble. And crumble she did.

It would seem to an ordinary observer, that Matrix had done something unforgivable. But to AndrAIa, he had had a decidedly noble reason behind his actions. He set them aside as Dot set them aside, and AndrAIa was left with no logical reason not to do the same herself. Bob had taken Megabyte's shell to the decomposition chamber early that morning, and their worst nightmares had ended.

She hoped that quietude would bless them for a time to come, for she had discovered something earlier that she had chosen not to disclose to Matrix during such a time of turmoil.

She knew she loved him. That had not changed. And with that love, she could only hope that becoming a father would help Matrix recover from the Games, and remember himself. The Self she fell in love with.

She knew he would.

---

**_Baby's black balloon makes her fly  
I almost fell into that hole in your life  
And you're not thinking about tomorrow  
'cause you were the same as me  
but on your knees_**

_**A thousand other boys could never reach you  
how could I have been the one?  
I saw the world spin beneath you  
and scatter like ice from the spoon  
that was your womb..**_

_**Comin' down, the world turned over  
and angels fall without you there  
and I go on as you get colder  
or are you someone's prayer?**_

_**You know the lies that they always told you  
and the love you never knew?  
What's the things they never showed you  
that swallowed the light from the sun  
inside your room?**_

_**Comin' down, the world turned over  
and angels fall without you there  
and I go on as you get colder--**_

_**And there's no time left for losin'  
when you stand they fall**_

_**Comin' down, the world turned over  
and angels fall without you there  
and I go on as you grow colder  
all because I'm--**_

_**Comin' down, the years turn over  
and angels fall without you there  
and I'll go on to bring you home  
all because I'm--  
all because I'm--  
and I'll become  
what you became to me ...**_

_**Goo Goo Dolls - Black Balloon**_

---  
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End file.
